1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing system, an image processing apparatus, a control method, a program and a storage medium. In the image processing system, a plurality of the image processing apparatus such as digital multi function peripherals capable of storing image data are connected to one another through a network or the like. The image processing system can be applied to a case where image data is transmitted and received among the image processing apparatus.
2. Related Background Art
In recent years, the demand of the electronization of paper documents has been increased with the improvement of the functions of information working apparatus such as computers, and the enlargement of the capacity of memories such as hard disks. The reason of the increase of the demand is that the perusal, the retrieval and the working of a paper document can be performed at a high speed and easily if the information read from the paper document is electronized and is accumulated in the memory.
A conventional digital multi function peripheral equipped with a scanner unit, a printer unit, a network communication unit and the like can store the image data read from a manuscript with the scanner unit in a memory such as a hard disk in the digital multi function peripheral. The stored image data can be printed out by the printer unit, or can be transferred to an external computer through a network by the network communication unit.
Moreover, the digital multi function peripheral is provided with a function of selecting a plurality of pieces of image data stored in the memory such as the hard disk, of combination the selected plurality of pieces of image data as one document (a piece of image data), and of re-saving the combined document into the memory.
Moreover, the following technique was proposed as a method of editing a plurality of pieces of document information and a single or a plurality of pieces of image information to output a unit of edited document relative to combination print which combined document information and image information to print out the combined information.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 09-319885 proposes a method of display a plurality of pieces of document information on a display on a page basis, designating a part where the image information read from the manuscript with a scanner is inserted into the document information on a page basis, and editing the document information and the image information at the time of outputting the document information and the image information (as a printout or a facsimile transmission output). Thereby, even when mixed information in which the document information and the image information are mixed is printed out, it is possible to suppress the memory using capacity on the output apparatus side to the minimum while treating the image data having a large data amount.
However, the conventional example mentioned above has a problem in which the method of outputting the document information and the image information as a unit of edited document can be applied only in the case where the image information read from the manuscript with the scanner is inserted into the stored document information to be output (as the printout or the facsimile transmission output). Moreover, there is a problem that the conventional example mentioned above cannot be applied when the electronization processing of the image information of a lot of manuscripts is carried out using a plurality of scanners.